Fighting for Euskera: The Role of Language in Basque Nationalism and the Development of the ETA

Basque nationalism is a movement that has encompassed myth, mystery, violence, and compromise, all of which have found their justification from the unique language, Euskera. The source of Euskera is uncertain due to its non-Indo-European origin, although there is evidence that it belongs “to the same agglutinative type of speech as do Santali, Mundari, Kurku, and other dialects of the Munda or Kolarian family of Bengal.”1 This differentiation, though it gives little explanation as to the location of its foundations, does suggest that the Basques “are the descendants of indigenous groups that were in the region from 5,000 to 3,000 B.C.E., and maybe earlier, making Basques the oldest permanent residents of Western Europe.”2 The isolation that the Basque ancestors maintained before the Indo-Europeans arrived and the distinctive language that has been preserved have offered a drive for Basque nationalism. As a response to the threatening of their culture, the Basques have buffered their unique language with claims of original sovereignty, xenophobia, and terrorism in order to gain independence. In recent years, now that a certain level of autonomy has been established, many Basques are content with their situation and have turned against the nationalist movement, viewing it as excessively radical and violent. Especially through the use of modern Basque media, the language that once fueled nationalist sentiment has now been targeted against it.

Before the late nineteenth century, there was little conflict between the Euskera and Spanish languages. Spanish was generally used for public and administrative business, while Euskera was more common in casual settings within the family or rural areas. Euskera was only a spoken language until the Catholic Church translated the Bible and various other religious works into it in the sixteenth century, so a Spanish-based education was not considered offensive. This all changed, however, when the Spanish government chose to suppress the Fueros, which were laws unique to the Basques that ensured regional privilege through a certain degree of self-government. Afraid of losing their relative sovereignty to the centralist, liberal Spaniards, the Basques rallied on the opposing side of the Carlist Wars and ultimately lost the two campaigns that concluded with the abolition of the Fueros. In addition to their military failures, the Basques were also threatened in the 1890s by fast-paced industrialization of the region that brought an extensive immigrant population from other Spanish regions. Many of the immigrants arrived looking for work in the steel business or iron mines, thereby threatening the traditionally Basque provinces with their Spanish language and anticlerical trade unions.3 The threat of excessive industrialization, immigration, and the loss of the Carlist Wars put the Basques in a defensive position that soon manifested into nationalism.

As heavy immigration ensued, Spanish foreigners overran key economic centers, and the Basque language and culture quickly declined. Basques throughout the region feared that assimilation would lead to disintegration of their way of life. The author Sabino de Arana, often considered the founder of modern Basque nationalism, responded by distinguishing the Basque cultural identity and justifying their differentiation from Spain. In doing so, he created a flag, ideology, and myth to validate the Basque lands, which he named Euskadi.4 This research will analyze his 1895 period after delving into his ideas about language, which will primarily serve as the main focus. Arana used the Euskera language in particular to embellish their imagined history, suggesting that, in his words, “Euskera might be the language of the Garden of Eden, the tongue spoken by all mankind before the disaster of the tower of Babel.”5 Arana was so focused on Euskera as a Basque creation that he declared, “Better that 10 Basques should not know Euskera than that a single maketo (foreigner) should speak it.”6

This new intensification of nationalism also concentrated on the importance of the Fueros from years past as evidence for the sovereignty they claimed they once had and still deserved. The Fueros gave the Basque people special privileges through universal nobility, but in reality the Spanish never treated them as a completely distinct group. Yet because of the persuasive language of nationalists like Arana, the Fueros were woven into an exaggerated history that credited them with provisions for democracy and egalitarianism in addition to their complete sovereignty. Likely in response to their recent loss of the Carlist Wars, cultural nationalists also noted how successful they had always been in maintaining their sovereignty, citing their victory against Charlemagne at Roncesvalles in 778 and the successful avoidance of domination by the Romans and Moors before that.7 The Basques held their historical military prowess responsible for the un-tempered language and culture that they valued so highly. Because no other ethnic groups were able to overtake the Basques, they were successful in preserving traditional Euskera with little influence from opposing languages until the struggles with the Spanish arose in the nineteenth century. Especially considering their current state of military defeat at the time and resultant loss of regional privilege, the Basques clung to the comfort of the past while simultaneously embellishing and fictionalizing it.8 In this way, their mental exaggeration compensated for their physical defeat. Fernando Garcia de Cortazar, a historian at the University of Bilbao, states that “the myths [. . .] helped convince the Basques that they [were] superior to other Spaniards," which gave them reason to believe their race and religion provided a higher moral standing on which to justify their independence.9

The Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party), also referred to as the PNV, was originally created in 1895 by Sabino de Arana and slowly gained political influence in Spanish parliament. Although the party experienced tribulations such as a schism between those who wanted greater autonomy versus full independence and dictator Primo de Rivera’s attempt to suppress the entire movement, the party was eventually able to reunite and continue its agenda underground.10 After 1923, the PNV continued to prosper clandestinely in small folk clubs. Eventually the Basque nationalist movement even regained enough power to form the Government of Euskadi for the first nine months of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1937.11 Later that year, however, Francisco Franco’s forces conquered the newly created Basque government, and they were forced to reconvene in Paris due to their exile from Spain. Franco was particularly harsh on the Basques; he tried to completely rid the country of all forms of Basque nationalism, outlawed the use of their language, and was responsible for thousands of Basque deaths and imprisonments.12 All physical evidence of the Basque language was erased; birth, marriage, and death certificates were replaced with Spanish copies, and Basque names were scratched off tombstones.13 Although total annihilation of Euskera was impossible, especially in rural regions where very little Spanish was spoken, the Basque language was outlawed in schools and public settings. According to Fernando Garcia de Cortazar, a Jesuit historian at the University of Bilbao, the adversity to which Franco subjected the Basques “was a cultural phenomenon. To some extent, the modern Basque identity was created by Franco. To be against Franco, you had to show that you were a Basque. And to show that you were a Basque, you supported the nationalist parties. Basque nationalism became a form of opposition to Franco."14 Especially with the Franco-supported German bombing of Guernica, a historically significant Basque city that same year, nationalist fever ran higher and higher. Guernica was where the Basques once held the ceremony of the royal oath in which the kings of Castille had to swear to follow the Fueros. The ritual was completed beneath an oak tree, which became their symbol of independence.15 The outright disrespect and attack on the Basque people and their culture sharpened tensions and helped to justify later violent Basque nationalist actions.

During World War II, the Basques, under the leadership of the exiled president José Antonio Aguierre, firmly supported the Allies and hoped the United Nations would assist them after the fall of the Fascist powers. To their disappointment, the Cold War negated any policy they hoped would develop, and the United States had to abandon the financial boycott of the Spanish government. This left the Basques in a particularly helpless position with seemingly little other choice than to wait for the Francoist regime to come to an end. Many young, action-oriented Basques were restless under the “do little” policy, and throughout the 1950s, many students at the Jesuit Deusto University in Bilbao gathered secretly in a group called Ekin to converse about politics and culture.16 In 1959, they formally created the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, translated as “Basque Country and Freedom,” or the ETA. This group claimed the Basque Country was overtaken by a foreign power and Euskadi deserved independence. One of the most important tenants of the ETA was that “it rejected race as a basis of Basqueness and substituted the notion of ethnos as expressed in commitment to the language and Basque cultural ideals.”17 By focusing on the language, the ETA was able to include those who were not racially Basque but still sympathetic to the cause for independence. Many of the descendants of non-Basque immigrants who came to the region in the turn of the century had become so well acclimated to the area and had assimilated into the culture to the point that they proclaimed Basque identity, thereby readily adopting the language and objectives of the Basque nationalists. Because the population was so largely composed of those of Spanish descent, the ETA had no choice but to use language rather than race as their deciding factor.

The ETA started with symbolic actions such as flying the outlawed Basque flag and passing out lapel badges at festivals, but as time passed, they became increasingly vigilant. Throughout this transition, however, the ETA continually relied upon the maintenance of Euskera as the backbone of their justification and manner of connecting with the Basque population. The ETA had the Catholic Church to thank for the linguistic background on which they supported their claims. The Church never supported the ban on Euskera because they relied on it to perform their pastoral objectives in the region, and they were the first to create Basque language journals and religious shows broadcasted in Euskera. The clergy also heavily supported the Ikastolas, or language schools, which were created in the early 1950s despite persecution from Spanish authorities.18 This movement for Basque language promotion attracted thousands of people, thereby making the ETA’s base of supporters even stronger.

Throughout the time of Franco’s reign, the ETA underwent many ideological and objective changes, but the importance of Euskera remained at least a highly publicized subject in the ETA agenda. In order to straighten out the organizational changes that were taking place, the ETA had a variety of assemblies starting in 1962 that more specifically identified the group’s goals and adversities. As the ETA realized the only opportunity for liberation lay in alliance with the Spanish in the Basque Country and with Spain in general, it increasingly shifted its focus to the members of the working class, most of which were Spanish speakers. This left little room for the original objectives adopted by the ETA, which led to criticism of the way the group was neglecting the Basque language question. This issue became so important, in fact, that in 1966 the ETA accepted the blame for not enunciating the language problem in the past year as the principles in the First Assembly of 1962 directed them to do.19 By means of this principle, they hoped the upkeep of Euskera would be the “main priority of a future government of an independent Euskadi, which would ensure that after a transitional phase, all teaching, press, radio, television, and administration would be carried out exclusively in Euskera.”20 The Fifth Assembly of the ETA saw the split of the traditional ETA and the ETA-Berri (“New ETA”) because the ETA-Berri chose to focus less on folkloric nationalism and more on socialist propaganda. Despite the separation, the Basque language remained a firm foundation within the ideology of the movement as a whole. The old ETA continued using it as a form of cultural nationalism, while the ETA-Berri fought for Euskera on the basis of the discrimination they experienced, which posed problems for the unity of the working class.21

Recognizing the Basque language was still a subject of the utmost importance to the Euskadi people, the ETA specifically publicized their activities regarding language and cultural investment, even if these were not their main objectives at the time. For example, the ETA had various Fronts that all had their own purposes, including Political, Economic, Military, and Cultural. The Cultural Front was charged with vitalizing Basque culture through teaching Euskera and assisting traditional language schools, still referred to as Ikastolas. It also focused on the consumption of Basque literature and history and participating in folklore festivals and events.22 Although by 1967 most of these were not considered illegal, they were still severely limited by authorities. Franco’s rule, which lasted until his death in 1975, had relaxed significantly in its later years but continued to maintain a firm hand on society. The Cultural Front might not have been the most important in relation to the other three categories, but its existence was necessary in order to please the people and balance the more aggressive activities.

The Burgos Trial in 1970 charged sixteen members of the ETA in response to these threatening activities that the group had been accumulating such as “causing explosions both in official buildings and commercial premises, armed robbery, illegal possession of arms, preparing and distributing propaganda, and planned assassinations.”23 This trial is often considered the most important in all of Basque history because it brought the ideas of the ETA to the media, allowing the general population to know all the names of those accused by heart. The Spanish authorities had hoped to separate the ETA from its nationalist roots in order to convince the public that they were truly a terrorist group, but the ETA foresaw this tactic and chose to use the trial as a political coup. For example, the trial highlighted the authorities’ infringement upon the Basque culture when the accused such as Itziar Aizpurua testified about “the discrimination against the native population by the refusal to allow children to speak Euskera in school and by the authorities’ prohibition of Basque cultural events.”24 This set the tone for the rest of the trial; although the ETA had become generally focused on the struggles of the working class, most of those on trial were from the middle class and fell back to the nationalist fold for justification of their actions. The way in which the trial depicted oppression of the Basque people shed a very negative light on the Francoist regime both within Spain and internationally, causing a halt in French and Italian shipping to Spain and demands from the Vatican that the Spanish government act leniently with the accused. Franco chose to follow the suggestion of the Vatican and signed reprieves for all the six death sentences, sparing Spain what could have resulted in considerable bloodshed.25

From that point on, the ETA continued to experience extensive internal conflict and multiple schisms as it tried to find an effective focus. At the forefront of this disagreement remained the balance, or lack thereof, between a concentration on the labor class and on the Basque language. By the Sixth Assembly of the ETA in 1970, the organization had split into the ETA-VI (signifying revolution or death, formed following the Sixth Assembly) and the ETA-V (signifying liberty or death, created during the Fifth Assembly). The ETA-VI transitioned away from traditional Basque nationalism, and the ETA-V centered on a mixture of primitive nationalism and Marxism. The ETA-V argued that Euskera speakers should be the ones to lead Basque socialism and based their justification on the writings of the acclaimed Frederico Krutwig, who was famed for his suggestion of guerrilla warfare for nationalist strategies and his focus on a unified literary Basque language. So essential was the language to the Basque people that the ETA-V was even able to recruit members of the ETA-VI “who had become alarmed at that organisation’s gradual abandonment of nationalism.” Although socialism was supported by the ETA-V, the struggle for an independent Basque state was held at the forefront. In order to accomplish this feat, they believed that armed struggle was the only way to reach this goal through Krutwig’s action/repression/action construction.26 As long as there was considerable repression of Basque culture and actions, a relatively large number of Basques would support the ETA. Soon after Franco’s death when Spain transitioned from a dictatorship to a parliamentary democracy and experienced a season of considerable weakness, Spain’s “military defeat through terrorist violence and popular insurrection in the Basque region was considered by the ETA a plausible means to achieve its political goal: the independence of the Basque region.”27 The violence of the ETA accelerated following the Spanish dictator’s death in late 1975, leading to over 90 percent of the 843 deaths attributed to the terrorist group.28

In 1978, the Spanish voted on a new constitution that, among other tenets, gave the Basques autonomy within Spain and allowed for their own self-government. Extensive negotiation took place, but the Basques were finally successful in obtaining an autonomous Basque government with Euskera and Spanish as the official languages.29 Most of the Basque population were willing to accept their newly offered autonomy while still remaining within the technical confines of the Spanish government, but the ETA was steadfast in its push for complete sovereignty. As Spain’s democracy solidified and Euskadi’s autonomy progressed in the 1980s, the ETA had to change its strategy for violent tactics by trying to pressure the government to negotiate.30 Their continued violence, especially considering the self-government the Spanish had already granted the Basques, made the ETA increasingly less popular among the Basque populace. Even in the late 1970s, the magazine Cambio 16 (“Change 16”) “showed that 53 percent of Spaniards were ‘seriously worried’ about terrorism,” and this number only increased as time passed. 31 By 2000, 85% of the Basque population was content with its autonomy and with its new freedom to flourish culturally, and the ETA came to represent an unnecessarily dangerous organization that gave a bad reputation to the entirety of the Basque region.32 For example, the once-successful Basque economy has witnessed a steady decline of investors and entrepreneurs due to either businessmen and women fleeing the country for fear of being targeted or avoiding it all together because of the ETA’s unpredictability.33

The ikastolas that were started clandestinely during the Franco era were precursors to the modern Basque educational system, which remains incredibly important in the maintenance of Euskera. However, the Basque language in popular culture seems to be most significant among the young Basque population,34 particularly through the influence of Basque media. Since Euskera is no longer in a state of repression, the Basques can now practice their language freely. This new ability has been exercised in various methods to demonstrate the unified Basque culture that has arisen from adversity, which has become a form of modern nationalism. In order to legitimize the idea they have claimed all along, the Basques have used the media through newspapers, television stations, and the Internet to create a more streamlined Euskera and solidified Basque culture. With unified media outlets, the Basques can bond culturally by means of broadcasting their views on modern events and news and identifying their distinctiveness on a large scale. Although the basic language has existed for thousands of years, the Basque government’s use of media has proven particularly important in ironing out the differences between the many dialects. This has led to more efficient communication between the Basque providences and therefore a more unified sense of self for the modern Basque nationalist movement.35 The developing influence the media has had on the Basques has offered them the opportunity to define themselves and their culture by more than the violence for which the ETA was responsible. They can now convince themselves and the world around them that their community is flourishing and unified, especially thanks to the redemptive power of Euskera.

The international and local response to the violence caused by the ETA in the past few decades has become increasingly critical and severe. Beyond the financial resistance that many entrepreneurs and businessmen have shown to investment in the Basque economy, the political consequences were particularly distressing for the Basques. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the murders and kidnappings committed by the ETA declined, and “in September 1998, ETA declared a total and indefinite cease-fire.”36 This cessation lasted for a mere 14 months, and by 2000 the ETA had murdered 23 more people. In response to the terrorist attacks, the Spanish government acted proactively against the ETA and by result against the general Basque populace. The large majority of the Basque people were just as against the terrorism of the ETA as the Spanish government, if not more so because most of the ETA’s victims were Basque. The terrorist group relied upon kidnappings, robberies, and extortion of typically Basque entrepreneurs in order to support themselves financially,37 and in order to stop this, the Spanish government arrested and tortured thousands without the privilege of trial, often ending in murder by Spanish command.38 The ETA has killed approximately 800 people since 1968 by means of terrorism, while the government has executed almost as many Basques since then.39 The situation appeared as though there was little the Basque people could do beyond organize demonstrations any time the ETA acted, negotiate with the Spanish government, and show through their all-important media outlets that their unity was particularly against violence.

The future of Euskadi appears to be brightening with a prolonged period of inaction by the ETA and its 2017 disarmament. The ETA has not murdered anyone since 2009 and has remained loyal to the cease-fire it declared in 2011. It announced in 2014 that the military wing of the organization had been dissolved as well.40 Although this statement seemed promising, the Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, remained suspicious of the organization, especially considering the ETA’s history of terminating supposedly indefinite cease-fires. He and the other mainstream Spanish parties refused to be satisfied until the ETA offered an unconditional surrender and relinquished all their weapons.41 Spanish authorities in 2014 particularly feared that if Catalonia successfully voted for and obtained independence, the Basques would likely not be far behind. In April of 2017, however, the ETA relinquished “118 pistols, rifles and automatic weapons, 25,700 rounds of ammunition and 2,875 kilograms of explosive materials to French authorities” in order to demonstrate disarmament and its efforts for peace. Many question, however, if the organization has completely disarmed because some of its weapons could still be used as incriminating evidence in ETA-related crimes of the early 2000s. According to the Guardian journalist Giles Tremlett, “The dangers of a splinter organisation emerging are real and the Guardian has learned that even within ETA’s depleted senior ranks there is concern about how hardliners will react.” Although fear of a future violent resurrection of the organization still exists and they refuse to declare official disbandment, the progress made will allow for Basques who remain politically on the separatist left to have better chances of success in future elections in the Spanish Basque Country and Navarre, France.42

The Euskera language clearly sets the Basque people apart from all other Europeans, no matter the time or medium in which it is used. The distinctiveness of the language in its non-Indo-European origins is clearly evidence as to their differing foundational group, but to the Basques, it has grown to be so much more. As the myths expanded, the politics changed, and the violence terrorized, the core loyalty to the language remained the same. At any point that Euskera appeared threatened, Basque nationalism flared. Euskera provided the Basque people with their own identity and justification for obtaining sovereignty to house that identity. Just as the language has persevered through immense adversity, Basque nationalism has witnessed many tumultuous turns. Yet even through attempted extinguishment of Euskera by dictators like Primo de Rivera and particularly Francisco Franco, it has remained protected and has given hope to its speakers. The Basques tried to defend the language by means of violence through the actions of the ETA for decades, but as time and the political situation evolved, the Basque language in the new forms of media was targeted against the terrorism. Euskera has always been at the right hand of the Euskadi people and has proven to be their source of power and motivation.

Douglass, William A., and Joseba Zulaika. “On the Interpretation of Terrorist Violence: ETA and the Basque Political Process.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (1990): 238-257. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/178914.

Scott, W. J. Edmondston. “The Basque Declension: Its Kolarian Origin and Structure.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 1, no. 3 (1920): 147-184. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/607595.

10.) William A. Douglass and Joseba Zulaika, “On the Interpretation of Terrorist Violence: ETA and the Basque Political Process,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (1990): 243, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/178914.

Douglass, William A., and Joseba Zulaika. “On the Interpretation of Terrorist Violence: ETA and the Basque Political Process.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (1990): 238-257. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/178914.

Scott, W. J. Edmondston. “The Basque Declension: Its Kolarian Origin and Structure.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 1, no. 3 (1920): 147-184. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/607595.

10.) William A. Douglass and Joseba Zulaika, “On the Interpretation of Terrorist Violence: ETA and the Basque Political Process,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (1990): 243, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.samford.edu/stable/178914.

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